To the Lady Barbara, the game that she had planned seemed easy, and
yet, in her first interview with her fiance, certain difficulties
appeared. Lord Farquhart presented himself, as in duty bound, late
that first afternoon. Lady Barbara received him with chilly finger
tips, offering him her oval cheek instead of her lips. He, ignoring
the substitute, merely kissed the tapering fingers.
"I am glad to see that you are none the worse for last night's
encounter," he said.
Wondering why his voice rang strangely, she answered, gayly:
"Rather the better for it, I find myself, thank you."
"You told your tale of highway robbery so well that it deceived even
my ears." Lord Farquhart spoke somewhat stiffly. "I had not realized
that you were so accomplished an actor."
"Ay, did I not tell it well?" Her agreement with him held but a faint
note of interrogation.
"I failed to catch your meaning, though, if meaning there was," he
said. And now his tone was so indifferent that the Lady Barbara might
have been forgiven for thinking that he cared not to understand her
meaning.
"I think I expressed my meaning fairly well last night," she answered,
her indifference matching his.
"Shall we let it pass at that, then?" he asked. "At that and nothing
more?" If the Lady Barbara did not care to explain her joke, why
should he force her?
"Ay, let us call it a jest," she answered, "unless the point be driven
in too far. A too pointed jest is sometimes a blunt weapon, my Lord
Farquhart."
Lord Farquhart heard the words that seemed so simple. He realized,
also, that the tone was not so simple, but, as he told himself, the
time would come soon enough when he would have to understand the Lady
Barbara's tones and manners. He would not begin until necessity
compelled him. He had quite convinced himself that the story of the
robbery, and the rings and rose in his coat, were naught save some
silly joke of the unsophisticated schoolgirl he supposed his cousin to
be. He moved restlessly in his chair. It was hard to find a simple
subject to discuss with a simple country girl.
"You received the rings in safety?" he asked, merely to fill in the
silence.
"Quite," she answered, "quite in safety, my Lord Farquhart." She was
consuming herself with a rage that even she could not wholly
understand. Her intended victim's indifference angered her beyond
endurance, and yet she dared not lose the hold she had not fully
gained. A jest, indeed! He chose to call the whole thing a jest! A
sorry jest he'd find it, then! And yet, surely, now was not the time
for her to prove her power. Tapping her foot impatiently, she added in
a thin, restrained voice: "Suppose we let the rings close the incident
for the moment, my cousin!"
Again Lord Farquhart questioned the tone and manner, but he answered
both with a shrug. The Lady Barbara was even more tiresome than he had
feared. He would have to teach her that snapping eyes and quarrelsome
speech were out of place in a _mariage de convenance_ such as they
were making. Doubtless he had failed to please her in some way. How he
knew not. But how could he please a lady to whom he was quite
indifferent, who was quite indifferent to him, and yet a lady to whom
he was to be married in less than a fortnight, a whole day less than a
fortnight. Lord Farquhart sighed far more deeply than was courteous to
the lady.
"If I can do aught to please you, Barbara, during your stay----" he
began, with perfunctory deference, but she interrupted him hotly.
"Barbara!" she had been fuming inwardly. And only the night before it
had been "Babs" and "sweetheart" and "sweet cousin"! Her wrath rose
quite beyond control and her voice broke forth impetuously.
"I beg of you not to give me your time before it is necessary, my Lord
Farquhart. And--and I beg you will excuse me now. I go to-night to
Mistress Barry's ball, and I--I--would rest after last night's
fatigues."
She flounced from the room without further leave-taking, and as she
fled on to her own chamber her anger escaped its bounds.
"He talks to me of jests," she cried, with angry vehemence. "A sorry
jest he'll find it, on my word. _Aie!_ I hate his insolent
indifference. One would think I was a simple country fool to hear him
talk. He--he--when I can have him hung just when it suits my good
convenience! I'll not marry him at all! Ay, but I will, though. I'll
make it worse for him by marrying him. And then I'll show him! Just
wait, my lord, until I'm Lady Farquhart and you'll dance to a
different tune, I'm thinking. Oh, I hate him, I hate him! I suppose he
goes now to his Sylvia, or--or, perchance, out onto the road again."
The Lady Barbara's tantrum had carried her into her own room and she
had slammed the door. Now she found herself stopped by the opposite
wall, and suddenly her tone changed. It grew quite soft, almost
tender. "I wonder if his Sylvia is fairer than I am," she said. "I
wonder if he might not come to look upon me as worthy of something
more than that sidewise glance."
As for Lord Farquhart, left alone in the boudoir, he was still
indifferent and still somewhat insolent, for, as he sauntered out from
the room, he muttered:
"May the devil take all women save the one you happen to be in love
with! And yet she's a pretty minx, too, if she hadn't such a vixenish
temper!"
And then he hummed the last line of his song to Sylvia.